On changing minds

In a previous thread, someone wrote: "While debating with a theist can be as invigorating as playing chess, one should bear in mind that it's doing them harm. It's driving them deeper into their psychosis."

This is simply not true, and yet it's unfortunately a very common meme among the "Don't be a dick" crowd. As a counterpoint, I'd like to share a letter we received a few months ago. I don't post stuff like this often, as it would come across as too self-congratulatory, but I do want to remind everyone that people sometimes change their minds.

For context: This guy originally wrote to us in January. He wrote that seeing the show was causing serious doubts in his own Christian beliefs. He then went on to say:

I was wondering, if there is no higher power, how you would justify morality in an atheist at all? Please don't misunderstand, as a young person on the verge of apostasy, I'm not saying that atheists have no morals, although I have met 'christians' who have claimed as much. After all, if there is no higher power, then there is no objective truth, ergo no objective morality, meaning all morality is subjective. If that is the case, then to say that a murderer is immoral is surely a fallacy, as he no doubt acted as his morals saw fit. If morality is subjective, then he is as moral for acting out the murder he saw as moral as you are for not acting out a murder you saw as immoral.

I wrote back and we discussed the morality issue for a while. The angle I took on this was the Euthyphro Dilemma, though I usually don't refer to it by name. I like to explore the concept that a God-given morality is somehow objective in a way that human consensus-derived morality is not. In the course of three more exchanges between us, and some messages from Tracie thrown in, we discussed slavery; we discussed the story of Jephthah; we talked about what kind of commands God could issue that would be considered by this person to be immoral.

After a while he said that they were hard questions but he still felt like there must be a god. The conversation petered out.

In September I received this:

Hi, Mr. Glasser,

I doubt you remember me, but we had a discussion about religion and so on just under a year ago. I have since become an atheist and I thought I'd drop you an e-mail to thank you. The video I e-mailed about in the first place was the first real faith-shaking material I had come into contact with, and from there I kept investigating my religion scientifically, historically and morally. Obviously, I found it wanting and, as I said earlier, have since renounced it. I thought I'd let you know a few of the final arguments in convincing me that the bible, at least, is wrong, not really in case you hadn't heard them (I'm sure you have), but rather because, since our discussion must have been frustrating for you, I'd like you to know. One is that the God of the bible forced us into sin, and therefore knowingly and willingly condemned literally billions of people to hell by creating the Eden situation in the first place, for he knew what would happen but did nothing to change it. This is an act of incredible cruelty, and is unjustifiable, giving trouble even to my own father (a minister). That's a moral argument, I suppose, but also shows a biblical contradiction (if God is all loving and unchanging then this act (among dozens of notable others) should be impossible). The second is the fallibility of the bible. I wonder if you knew that Luke, in his gospel, lists 28 generations between Joseph, Jesus' father, and David, whereas Matthew gives 41. On top of that, the census Luke wrote about never happened, and the local census upon which it may have been based happened long after Herod's death.

Those are just a few, but anyway, thanks again for showing me another way of thinking, and it's thanks in part to you guys and what you're doing that I am being fascinated and amazed every day by the way that the world works without resorting to the 'Don't ask questions, God did it' train of thought.

So. I have been asked, on a few occasions, whether arguing with people about atheism ever changes people's minds. My answer is always "Very rarely, and the changes are usually minor but positive." This is what I would consider a happy exception.

Viewer Mail: Are There Other Gods?

I'm not posting the writer's full letter because he is an atheist who wrote to ask how we might reply to a theist he encountered. I provide sufficient input to give you an idea of the claims he said were put forward:

>...[to an atheist] there are no concepts of evil and suffering.

Well, that's just stupid. Evil may be self-defined, but that is what a "concept" is--an idea you hold. An atheist may say "I don't use the term evil because it's too ambiguous," but he could hold "X" as a criteria of evil and accept X is evil. Meanwhile "suffering" is less ambiguous. While we can talk about what constitutes suffering, anyone who has ever broken a bone or burned themselves or lost a loved one understands suffering--both physical and emotional. Even animals understand suffering--we know, because when they're given choices to avoid it--they take those non-suffering options. If a dog can understand it, why not an atheist?

>To an atheist, there is no difference between a tree falling over and crushing a bees nest and an earthquake causing a building to collapse and kill a group of human beings.

In-group bias exists in all social species. Wolves, for example, hunt prey--but how often do you see them hunting wolves? This person is trying to give god credit for biologically derived realities. Bees are not people. And we are biologically geared to care about other humans, because we are human social animals. This is why you don't see cultures that routinely raise other humans for food--anywhere on the planet. All people, all wolves, all chimpanzees, see a difference between members of their own species and animals that are not members of their own species. Again, a wolf can get it, but a human can't--without god?

>Seeing as all living things are just random matter, what's the difference to an atheist?

Seeing as all people are depraved and deserve death and hell, why does a Christian care if a building falls on other people? Didn't they deserve it?

>He claims that only biblical faith offers objective standards of good and evil

Actually, it doesn't. Euthyphro shredded this years, and years, and years, ago. You can either personally understand why X is wrong, in which case you are using your own moral judgment, or you can't understand why it's wrong, and you're nothing but a trained monkey who does X because he's been taught to, with no employment of moral judgment. Following orders is not a morality and requires that I exercise no understanding whatsoever of moral thinking or behavior. Beyond that "Thou shalt not kill" was followed by god ordering the killing of people all over the place. How is that objective? Is killing wrong? Is slaughtering your neighbor, his wife, and his toddler sons--but keeping his (most likely underage) daughter as a "wife" (i.e., sex slave)--the sort of objective morality he means?

>Atheists have no reason to feel pity for anyone or anything.

So, rats empathize, but not people. What a sick view of humanity--we don't even have the natural emotional range of a rat?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5373379/Animals-can-tell-right-from-wrong.html

>he said there that there have never been any other gods.

What about the Ugarit god "El" that the Hebrews borrowed to create the god he worships today? Pantheons have been demonstrated in Egypt, Greece, Rome...the idea there are no other gods is so demonstrably false (if we mean gods people believed in and worshiped) as to make his claim ridiculous. Even Ba'al and Ashterah and Sophia are mentioned in his own Old Testament. Sophia (the goddess "Wisdom") even gets a speaking part in the Book of Solomon:

http://northernway.org/sophia.html

Ashterah was the wife of El (another name for Yahweh), and was worshiped by the Hebrews alongside Yahweh (because both El and Ashterah were borrowed from the Ugarit pantheon). King Hezekiah abolished the worship of the wife of El, according to the Old Testament:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah#In_Israel_and_Judah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

Ba'al is mentioned all through the Old Testament:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal (see the box on the right for more Ugarit gods)

>and are not really gods because they exist within the Universe, not outside it.

He doesn't get to define what people call gods. If there are so many gods that don't fit his personal definition, he can't argue they're wrong, only that he doesn't personally consider these as gods. But he can't say nobody else did or does. They are gods. They are worshiped. They do exist as legitimate concepts of gods that stand in glaring and direct opposition to his claim.

>Only Christianity has ever had the idea of an eternal, infinite creator God.

Let's say that's true. So what? What if I found only Egypt ever had the concept of a god with a hawk head...so what?

>Any religions younger than Christianity have copied it...

Wow, how can he claim to know what every religion after Christianity has taught? That's a bold claim, and one I doubt he's informed enough to make. But funny he worships a god borrowed from Ugarit by the Hebrews, while he claims other religions don't fly if they borrow from his?

>But I just wondered what your guys thoughts were?

I think he's ignorant about animal psychology and the roots of his own religion and instead of informing himself, he stays ignorant so that he can use his ignorance as a springboard to claim support for his beliefs--which shrivel and die in the light of actual information.

-th